“Then why did you say . . .” Rose could not continue. Her disappointment was written on her face.
Isabel reached a decision. The whole ridiculous situation 1 6 6
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h needed to be resolved. She had to get back to truth and rationality and put an end to this absurd dalliance with the paranor-mal. “I’m going to have to tell you a rather odd story,” she said.
“I don’t come out of it very well, I’m afraid, but I suppose I might say in my defence that I was well intentioned.”
Rose looked at her. Her disappointment now seemed to be turning to distrust. “I’m not sure,” she began. She made as if to get up, but Isabel put out a hand to stop her.
“Please listen,” she said. “I know it might sound unlikely to you, but please hear me out.”
Rose sat back. “All right,” she said coldly. “Tell me whatever it is that you want to say.”
“It began right there,” Isabel said, pointing to a nearby table.
“I was looking after this place while my niece was away. I found myself talking to a man who came in for his lunch. He told me that he had recently been given a heart transplant.” She paused, waiting to see whether the mention of the heart transplant had any effect on Rose. But Rose remained impassive.
“I met him on another occasion,” she said. “He’s a perfectly rational man. Very level-headed and sane—a clinical psychologist, in fact. He spoke to me about the effects of the operation, and one of these was a rather unexpected one.”
Rose, who had been listening courteously, now shrugged. “I don’t know what this has got to do with my son. Frankly, I don’t see where this is going.”
Isabel looked at her in surprise. “But your son was the donor,” she said. “This man I spoke to has his heart.”
The effect of this on Rose was immediate. “I think that you’ve made some fundamental mistake,” she said. “I don’t know why you think this has anything to do with us. Why do you F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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say that my son was the donor? What on earth are you talking about?”
For a moment Isabel was too confused to say anything.
Then, with Rose looking at her in slightly irritated puzzlement, she continued, “Your son was the heart donor. They transplanted his heart into Ian. They took it over to Glasgow.”
“My son was not a donor of anything,” said Rose hotly. “I think that you’ve got things rather badly mixed up, Miss . . . Dalhousie, was it?”
In her confusion, all that Isabel could manage was a lame
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” said Rose, her irritation coming to the surface. “If my son had been a donor, they would have asked us, wouldn’t they? Nobody told us anything about all this. Nobody . . .” She struggled with the words that followed. “Nobody took his heart.”
For a few minutes neither of them said anything. Rose looked at Isabel reproachfully, and Isabel looked down at the table.
“I’ve obviously made a very bad mistake,” she said after a while, her voice tentative and uneven. “I shouldn’t have leapt to conclusions. I really do apologise to you for causing you this obvious distress. I had . . . I had no idea.”
Rose sighed. “There’s no real harm done,” she said. But she did not intend to leave it at that. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to set your friend right on this. We have nothing to do with his operation—nothing. This doesn’t concern us at all.”
Isabel nodded miserably. “I feel very bad about this,” she said. “I barged in without checking to see what sort of ground I was standing on.”
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“Let’s just forget all about it,” said Rose. “There’s been a bit of confusion—that’s all.”
There was nothing more for them to say to each other.
Mutely, Rose got up, nodded to Isabel, and then walked out of the delicatessen. She did not turn round; she did not bother to look. And Isabel, folding up her paper, took her cup back to the counter.
“What was that about?” asked Cat, nodding in the direction of the door. “Who was that woman?”
“It was all about a misunderstanding,” said Isabel. “And it was also about me. It was about my tendency to get the wrong end of things. To make assumptions. To interfere. That’s what that was about.”
“Aren’t you being a bit hard on yourself ?” Cat said. She was used to Isabel’s self-critical assessments and her frequent moral debates with herself—and with anybody else within earshot.
But the self-abasement in her aunt’s voice was more profound than usual.
“That’s my trouble,” said Isabel. “I’m not hard enough on myself. I have to stop this ridiculous assumption that just because somebody speaks to me I am bound to take up a cause.
Well, I’ve had enough of that. I’m going to stop.”
“Will you?” asked Cat. “Do you really think you will?”
